AMD plans to acquire AI lab World Labs for $8.2 billion, led by Fei-Fei Li, to enhance its AI capabilities and compete with Nvidia.
AMD has entered into an agreement to acquire World Labs, an AI research facility led by prominent computer vision expert Fei-Fei Li, in a deal valued at approximately $8.2 billion in stock.
Fei-Fei Li to Join AMD
Fei-Fei Li, often called the "godmother of AI" for her groundbreaking contributions to AI and computer vision, notably through the development of ImageNet, will become AMD's Executive Vice President and Chief Scientist upon the acquisition's completion. She will bring her team from World Labs to AMD, reporting directly to CEO Lisa Su.
Advancing Spatial Intelligence
World Labs focuses on spatial intelligence, creating models that generate and simulate interactive 3D environments from text, images, and video. They are also working on technologies for robot training and simulation.
AMD plans to utilize the expertise of World Labs to enhance its understanding of the computational needs for reasoning models, robotics, simulations, and physical AI, which will influence AMD's hardware and software architecture moving forward.
Competing with Nvidia
Financed through AMD stock, the acquisition is anticipated to close by the end of 2026, pending regulatory approval. AMD has previously collaborated with World Labs on training and inference models using its GPUs and participated in a $1 billion funding round for the lab earlier this year. This acquisition follows AMD's earlier purchase of AI infrastructure developer ZT Systems for $4.9 billion in 2024.
